President Barack Obama said the country has the “unfinished task” of reviving economic prospects for the middle class, in a State of the Union address that included immigration, gun control, climate change and Afghanistan. Here is our live blog.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama just left the White House to make their trip to the Capitol for his State of the Union speech, but the cable networks are still focusing on the events unfolding in California.

President Obama will return to a familiar theme tonight when he delivers his annual State of the Union Address: jobs and the economy.

The president is expected to use tonight’s speech to build on the themes he outlined in his second inaugural address a few weeks ago. And while he’s expected to touch on a number of second-term priorities – immigration reform, new gun laws, curbs on carbon emissions – much of the early evidence points to a heavy emphasis on job creation and an economy that rewards middle-class workers.

The themes aren’t new terrain for Obama. In 2010, he said the word “jobs” 29 times and used it more than 30 times in both 2011 and 2012. The early excerpts of tonight’s speech echo his first-term oration with lines like, “It is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain of this country – the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what you look like or who you love.”

The challenge for Obama in the weeks and months ahead – as it has been since early in his presidency – will be keeping the focus on whatever job-creation he initiatives he outlines tonight, once the attention here in Washington returns to the ongoing fight over spending and trimming the federal deficit.

In the run-up to his first State of the Union since winning a second term, the president finds himself contending with an unexpected distraction: the dramatic manhunt of the fugitive Los Angeles police officer out in the mountains of California. The cable networks, which typically offer hours of breathless lead up to the president’s speech, spent Tuesday night broadcasting live images of a burning cabin where the suspect was reportedly bunkered.

The first lady’s official guests for the State of the Union address always serve as signposts for the president’s speech. That’s particularly true tonight. The president will rely on some human props to revamp immigration laws, expand early childhood education and new gun laws. For an early hint of what’s to come, here are just a few of the people who will join First Lady Michelle Obama in the official box:

- Sgt. Sheena Adams, a Marine who earned a Combat Action Ribbon after a tour in Afghanistan, signals the president’s support for women serving on the frontlines.

- Alan Aleman, a Mexican-born college student who was among the first to qualify for legal status when Mr. Obama changed the rules for undocumented immigrants who came to the country illegally, another nod to his push for sweeping immigration reforms.

- Jack Andraka, a 16-year-old high school student who won an international science prize for creating a new method to detect pancreatic cancer, represents Mr. Obama’s continued calls to promote science, technology, engineering and math.

- Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel Pendleton Sr., parents of a Chicago high-school shot and killed days after participating in the president’s second inauguration. Obama is pushing for new curbs on gun violence.

Other official guests include some bold-faced names – Apple chief executive Tim Cook being the most prominent – and a number of people tied to recent news events: a first-grade teacher from Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn.; a nurse who helped move at-risk infants from a New York hospital during Hurricane Sandy; and a Wisconsin police officer shot responding to the mass shooting at a Sikh temple over the summer.

Expect cameras in the chamber to pan frequently to these guests as the president outlines his priorities for the country in the year ahead.

Gun-rights advocate and musician Ted Nugent is sitting in the visitors gallery in the far north western corner in the upper level of the House of Representatives: about as far from the dais from which President Barack Obama will deliver his State of the Union Address.

Newly sworn-in GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina receives an ironic cheer being welcomed back to the House chamber by his former Republican colleagues. Scott standing with another new senator, Democrat Mo Cowan of Massachusetts, also recently appointed to the upper chamber. They are the only two African-American members of the Senate, the first time the chamber has two black members sitting at the same time.

One-fourth of the former supercommittee chatting on the floor: Dave Camp and Fred Upton, both Republicans of Michigan and Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana. Baucus and Camp, heads of the tax-writing committees, planning to sit together for the third year in a row.

With official Washington all gathered in Capitol tonight, standard protocol requires one cabinet secretary to stay far, far away. Tonight, that honor falls to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who announced his decision earlier this month to relinquish the post in Barack Obama’s second term.

Vice President Joe Biden and many members of Congress are sporting green lapel ribbons. They were provided by the Newtown Action Alliance, a gun-control group formed after the Connecticut school shooting in December.

CNN employs a split screen to show the House floor AND the burning cabin in the mountains of California, as Speaker John Boehner gavels the House for tonight’s State of the Union speech. The ritual procession of senators, cabinet secretaries and Supreme Court justices is well under way, but attention is still split.

Michelle Obama enters and takes a seat right next to the parents of the Chicago high school student whose funeral she attended over the weekend, an early nod that gun control will feature prominently in tonight’s agenda.

For many cabinet secretaries, this will be their last stroll down the center aisle for a State of the Union address. Departing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta trades a warm handshake with Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who are delaying consideration of his replacement.

Acting Treasury Department Secretary Neal Wolin files into the House chamber as part of the president’s cabinet. The confirmation hearing for the White House’s nominee to lead Treasury, Jacob Lew, is tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. EST. It’s unclear how much longer Wolin will be in his post, but he’s been a veteran of both the Clinton and Obama administrations and involved in many budget, financial, and economic debates.

The president enters the chamber to a number of familiar faces: New York Democrat Eliot Engel and other House members regularly wait hours to sit on the center aisle so they can share a word and a handshake with the president. By now, Obama has to know who he will see when he makes the trip to the speaker’s rostrum for his big address.

The shift isn’t that subtle. The president says the country has made great progress, but not everyone is enjoying the spoils of that economic rebound. This is a theme that has dominated his political career, from his first bid through his first term, and it’s one that will likely he a resounding theme of his entire second term.

Republicans in the chamber will almost certainly take their cues for when to applause, stand and remain stone faced from House Speaker John Boehner who is behind the president on the dais, or from other House GOP leaders sitting together in the center of the chamber.

The president doesn’t waste any time before picking up where he left off in his inaugural address a few weeks ago, telling the Republicans and Democrats in the chamber, “The American people don’t expect government to solve every problem. They don’t expect those of us in this chamber to agree on every issue. But they do expect us to put the nation’s interests before party.”

Obama’s reference to “sudden, harsh, arbitrary” cuts of the sequester damaging the military reflect the fact that the Pentagon has already begun to make spending reductions. Most notably, the Pentagon has cut a deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Middle East, citing the threat of the looming budget cuts—leading to howls of protest by defense hawks in Congress opposed to the sequester.

The president is devoting an early and prominent part of his speech to his red lines in negotiations over Medicare. Here’s what to remember in future deficit talks. Obama acknowledges the need for “modest reforms” to the federal insurance program for the elderly — and notes that “the biggest driver of our long-term debt is the rising cost of health care for an aging population.” His caveats? “we can’t just cut our way to prosperity.”

The approach the president is offering tonight is the same approach that featured prominently in the talks leading up to the Christmas fiscal cliff deadline, and come a day after White House spokesman Jay Carney reiterated that any increase in the Medicare eligibility age is off the table. (See this story for an expanation.)

Obama says the country is more than halfway towards the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that he originally sought. He says lawmakers have already agreed to $2.5 trillion in reductions over 10 years. One problem with this, though, is that the White House is scrambling to replace essentially $1.2 trillion of that deficit reduction (known as the sequester). This is a looming issue that is dividing both parties, as big cuts are set to begin March 1.

The president is taking it right to Republicans at the outset of this speech by ridiculing their plans to avoid defense cuts in the sequester. If his early tone offers any clues, this could be a long night for the GOP.

His comments on deficit reduction are virtually identical to what he said on the campaign trail. “We can’t just cut our way to prosperity.” And he says everyone has to pay their “fair share.” Not much applause from anyone on these issues.

Obama says he is open to additional reforms from both parties on programs like Medicare. But he’s not open to ALL reforms. The White House on Monday nixed the idea of raising the eligibility age for Medicare.

Those Medicare proposals, again, in detail: reduced payments for drug companies providing prescriptions in Medicare, increased means-testing for the wealthiest seniors, and cuts to hospital and doctor payments, with performance-related incentives. What’s left? “Additional reforms from both parties, so long as they don’t violate the guarantee of a secure retirement.”

Obama increasingly has viewed tax reform as an occasion for raising revenue as well as streamlining the tax system and boosting U.S. business competitiveness. “To hit the rest of our deficit reduction target, we should do what leaders in both parties have already suggested, and save hundreds of billions of dollars by getting rid of tax loopholes and deductions for the well-off and well-connected,” he says tonight.

The president acknowledges the need to reform Medicare, but he says he won’t do anything that undermines the fundamental promise of the program – an implied swipe at Republican proposals to fundamentally reshape the popular health-care program for seniors.

The president is careful on taxes. Calls for ending “loopholes” but doesn’t go into any specifics. Blasts “special interest tax breaks.” Calls for comprehensive tax reform. Democrats and Republicans have said they are game for this, but they are FAR apart on what a new tax code should look like.

The federal health care law got what’s likely to be its lone shout-out in the president’s speech tonight when he said “Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs.” Some in the chamber appeared to boo him. On the other hand, nobody yelled out “You lie!”

The president is hitting on themes his Republican opponent Mitt Romney frequently highlighted by stressing the need to eliminate costly deductions, but congressional Republicans are already backing away from those campaign pledges – even though House Speaker John Boehner offered up many of the same reform proposals during multiple negotiations with the White House.

Obama gives another shout out to his idea for a Buffett Rule – a minimum tax on people making more than $1 million. It was a big feature of last year’s State of the Union. But this year, it gets less emphasis, perhaps because he’s already won tax rate increases on the wealthy. He calls for “a tax code that ensures billionaires with high-powered accountants can’t pay a lower rate than their hard-working secretaries.”

Obama calls for passing a budget “without the brinksmanship” that scares consumers and investors, and blasts Washington for “manufactured” crises. (There’s a couple on the horizon, starting in a few weeks). He also says the government should uphold the “full faith and credit” of the government. That’s probably a reference to the expected fight over raising the debt ceiling, which will come in July or August.

The president is turning from the nitty-gritty of deficit reduction to talk about his second-term priorities, telling the assembled lawmakers, “Deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan. A growing economy that creates good, middle-class jobs – that must be the North Star that guides our efforts.”

The president devoted a large chunk of his speech to deficit reduction, but didn’t propose anything new. The point of this probably was to use the internationally televised event to give his sales pitch for his plan, knowing that Democrats and Republicans are going to be slugging it out in sound bytes for the next year on this.

A shout out to energy independence with a nod to booming domestic oil production and a big jump in renewable energy. One quibble: Obama said the country has already doubled the mileage of cars and trucks. Actually, average fuel-economy standards will double by 2025.

House Democrats, who have been pushing these “Made in America” initiatives for years, will certainly embrace these calls for manufacturing hubs. But the initiatives haven’t gotten any traction in the Republican-controlled House.

Despite the huge political obstacles, Obama puts significant emphasis on overhauling the tax code and making broad changes to entitlements. And the idea wins big applause – suggesting that there’s bipartisan appetite. Still, is there enough appetite?

By reminding people that the country now produces more domestic energy than we have in 15 years, the president is debunking a claim often made by Republicans that the president’s policies would result in less drilling and higher energy prices.

Strong language on climate change, that drew a standing ovation, and echoing the inaugural address. It’s also a direct challenge to climate skeptics who argue that record droughts, floods, temperatures and storms are par for the course.

He said that action on climate could spur economic growth. Many economists have been saying the same thing—if the administration embraced a carbon tax that curbed harmful emissions while lowering taxes on labor and capital. But no sign of a carbon-tax proposal tonight.

A direct challenge to Congress—act on climate change or the White House will. That sounds a lot like what happened in the first term, when the administration used the specter of EPA action to try to prod Congress into action—and Congress eventually did nothing. But now the administration has shown it will pass new rules unilaterally.

The president is going out a limb politically by championing a “market-based solution to climate change.” An effort House Democrats to pass a climate-change measure during his first term died in the Senate, and some House lawmakers lost their seats as a result. But this time, he’s threatening executives action to go around Congress, if they fail to act.

A warm embrace of the shale gale that has boosted natural gas production, and promises to speed up domestic development. But the oil industry is still skeptical that the administration really wants to boost production. Two keys to watch in the future: Will the administration approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and what kind of regulations will it place on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas?

Obama pledged to expand manufacturing employment throughout his first term, and he said Tuesday that manufacturers have added 500,000 jobs over the past three years after more than a decade of losses.

He’ll have a long road ahead to rebuilding the factory sector. The U.S. has about 12 million manufacturing workers today, down from 12.6 million when he took office during a recession that battered factories hard. Total factory employment peaked at almost 20 million in 1979 – about 22% of the workforce– and has been declining since. Today, manufacturing jobs account for less than 10% of the workforce.

Obama proposes an energy trust fund, using federal revenues from booming oil and gas production, to pay for research into ways to wean off oil. It’s a nice nod to electric cars, biofuels, and gas-fired vehicles. But still a long cry from the call for 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015, a SOTU staple as recently as 2011.

Among the most enthusiastic people in the House chamber tonight is freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, first to bounce to her feet on several occasions. Ms. Warren, one of the most liberal members of the Senate, is sitting in between the unlikely duo of fiscal hawk Sen. Tom Coburn and the tea-party backed Sen. Ron Johnson.

Obama planted the seeds for more energy-efficient buildings with his 2009 stimulus bill; that package trained thousands of workers across the country to retrofit homes and other buildings to make them more efficient

This speech is something of a catch-all for many of the president’s first-term priorities. The administration has offered multiple proposals to encourage homeowners to refinance, and while the programs have enjoyed modest success, there has been a limit to the success of previous initiatives.

Obama proposed a new “Fix-It-First” program to rebuild deficient infrastructure across the U.S., but his focus tonight makes a new nod toward the private sector. The “Partnership to Rebuild America” is designed to use public money to attract private capital to upgrade “modern ports to move our goods; modern pipelines to withstand a storm; modern schools worthy of our children.” Many states and other countries increasingly think about infrastructure through public-private partnerships. Getting Congress on board will be tough as usual, but it could get the construction lobby excited about trying to draw all that money sitting on the sidelines of the economy.

More on Siemens: Obama praised Siemens, the giant engineering company, for its work on partnering with a community college in North Carolina to train students. He mentioned the company in his 2012 State of the Union address also: “Jackie Bray is a single mom from North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte, and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College. The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie’s tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant.”

As expected, there’s not a lot in this speech so far to buoy Republicans – even his calls for increased incentives to produce domestic energy are coupled with things the GOP hates, like new limits on carbon emissions. But the challenge to give every children “a high-quality preschool” puts Republicans in the awkward position of potentially resisting money for kids.

Obama touts his $4.35 billion Race to the Top education competition — which prodded dozens of states to link teacher evaluations to student test scores and increase the number of charter schools – and says he wants to create a new challenge to redesign American high schools. Improving high school test scores and graduation rates has become a national obsession as other countries outscore us on reading and math exams.

Obama wants school districts to work with colleges and employers to recreate high schools that prepare graduates for a “high-tech economy.” He gives a shout out to P-Tech high school in Brooklyn, a joint effort with New York City Public Schools and IBM, profiled here.

By spotlighting the most affordable colleges, the president is touching on a raging debate about whether college degrees are economically worthwhile given the soaring student-loan debt in this country.

Leaders of the bipartisan group of senators advocating an overhaul of the country’s immigration laws applauded enthusiastically at President Barack Obama’s call for such reform. Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Charles Schumer all merry and cheering him on. Sitting three seats over from Mr. McCain was freshman GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas who neither stood nor applauded.

Obama wants the minimum wage raised from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour by 2015. He references how many Americans are living below the poverty line. In 2011, according to the Census, roughly 50 million Americans lived below the poverty line – around 15.9% of Americans.

The president reminds Republicans that their standard bearer backed an incremental minimum-wage increase. But by calling for a raise in the minimum wage, the president may be further alienating a group that doesn’t love him: small-business owners, many of whom bristle at the costs imposed by the new health-care law.

Obama gives the House a nudge to pass the domestic violence bill approved today by the Senate. The bill provides funding for battered women’s shelters and other programs designed to prevent domestic violence and bolster its prosecution. Last year the chambers passed dueling bills that were never reconciled. First passed in 1994, the act officially lapsed in 2011, but stop-gap spending measures have kept it funded since then.

Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is skeptical of the troop cut in Afghanistan that Obama embraced, saying it is at odds with the force levels sought by the former top commander, Gen. John Allen.

Defense officials said today, however, they are comfortable with the cuts. A senior administration said under current plans the force level would drop from 66,000 to at 60,500 by May. Officials expect to keep most of those forces in place through the fighting season, dropping to 52,500 by November. Over the winter the remainder of the 20,500 would leave the country.

The theme of stronger families was actually a dominant strain during last year’s Republican primary. His subtle challenge for men to raise the children they conceive sounds a lot like something former Sen. Rick Santorum said as he courted conservative Christian voters.

Some observers had expected Obama to signal how large a force he might want to keep in Afghanistan over the long term. Officials have said that they expect the White House to back a small troop presence of between 3,000 and 6,000. Obama did not offer any clues on what he will decide but reiterated his belief that the mission will be limited to training Afghan forces and pursuing the “remnants of al Qaeda.”

Obama has spent much of the past two months reaching out to business groups and trying to repair frayed relations. The minimum wage proposal will really test any good will he might have built. Many business groups are very opposed to raising the wage, saying it discourages hiring low-skilled workers.

Is this a reference to the increasingly controversial drone strikes the president and his administration back? “We will continue to take direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans.”

Obama argues his administration has tried to “forge a durable legal and policy framework” for U.S. counter-terrorism operations. That means drones.

Members of Congress have begun discussing endorsing a special court which could review possible counter terrorism strikes. The nomination of John Brennan to become Director of the Central Intelligence Agency has opened up a more open dialogue on Capitol Hill about U.S. drone strikes.

Obama did not address the court proposal but signaled he is willing to talk more with Congress. And he also suggested a willingness to possibly share more information about counter terrorism operations.

“I recognize that in our democracy, no one should just take my word that we’re doing things the right way,” Mr. Obama said. “ So, in the months ahead, I will continue to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention, and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.”

The president’s pledge to be more transparent comes as civil-rights groups and some liberal Democrats criticize his drone program for targeting suspected terrorists with little public disclosure or congressional oversight.

Obama’s promise to engage Russia to seek further reductions in the arsenal echo themes he has sounded earlier in his presidency. In his first term, he repeatedly discussed nuclear nonproliferation and reducing the size of the nuclear arsenal. Last March, at a speech in Seoul, Obama said, “I firmly believe that we can ensure the security of the United States and our allies, maintain a strong deterrent against any threat, and still pursue further reductions in our nuclear arsenal.”

Even Obama’s restatement of his old positions advocating nuclear cuts are likely to be attacked by Republicans. GOP defense hawks embraced the reductions in the New START treaty only reluctantly and are deeply skeptical of any further cuts to the nuclear arsenal. This week, GOP senators said it was inappropriate to consider further cuts given Iran’s continued work on its nuclear program and the North Korean nuclear test.

On Africa, Obama acknowledges that al Qaeda and its allies have spread across the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, but says the U.S. can fight them without sending large numbers of troops. To do it, he says, America will work with local governments and use U.S. “counterterrorism” – drones.

Obama’s comment on the North Korea was about its nuclear bomb test this week, the third in recent years. U.S. officials are concerned about that bomb test because at first blush, it appears that it may have been larger and more sophisticated than two previous detonations. And the North Koreans boast that they used a small warhead in the detonation – the worry in Washington is that they’ve developed a miniaturized warhead, which could be mounted on a missile. And, recall, North Korea in December had a fairly successful test launch of a long-range missile.

Nuclear weapons experts and analysts said even though Obama eschewed specific recommendations for further cuts in the nuclear arsenal in the speech, the White House is likely to embrace cuts in the weeks to come. Currently, under the New START Treaty, the U.S. is allowed 1550 warheads. Some U.S. officials have said that the Pentagon is considering endorsing a cut that would bring the arsenal down to between 1,000 and 1,100. While Obama talked about engaging Russia, few experts think the administration will try to forge another treaty with Russia, instead looking for less formal agreements to scale back the arsenals.

Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said even though Obama avoided outlining specific cuts on Thursday “done deal.” Mr. Coughlan has predicted that the government could save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next two decades cutting the arsenal. “It is the right thing to do from a national security stand point, but it is also the right thing to do from a fiscal stand point,” Mr. Coghlan said.

Obama will make a lot of European officials giddy with his announcement to pursue a trade pact with the European Union. He’s calling it the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to achieve “free and fair” trade across the Atlantic. European officials have pushed for a free-trade agreement for years, hoping it would strengthen their continent and boost a recession-battered euro-zone economy.

U.S. officials have been less excited, wondering whether Europeans would actually break down their stringent regulatory barriers to genetically modified U.S. crops and animal products raised with hormones. But U.S. businesses want the deal.

The Obama administration may recognize that trying to work with Europe offers other benefits: developing a strong international power with similar values – and sizable budgets — to address international security concerns.

On cybersecurity, as expected, Obama announced he is ordering new federal steps on cybersecurity and to protect against hackers. Obama has to do it by executive order – through federal agencies he controls — because he couldn’t get his legislation through Congress last year over the objections of businesses and their allies who saw it as a new step toward federal regulation. Here is the related order.

A mention of Syria – to say that the U.S. will keep up the pressure on Syrian President Basahr al-Assad. It was an interesting revelation last week that a long list of current and former officials – Hillary Clinton, Gen. Petraeus, Leon Panetta and Gen. Dempsey — all favored arming the Syrian rebels last year, while the White House did not.

Foreign policy analysts have wanted Obama tp signal that America intended to remain engaged with the world. And they got a (very) short nod in that direction. “In defense of freedom, we will remain the anchor of strong alliances from the Americas to Africa; from Europe to Asia,” Obama said.

Before the speech, Karl Inderfurth, an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and scholar at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he wanted a signal from Obama that the U.S. would remain active on the world stage. “There is a concern that America is focusing inward and withdrawing from various engagements around the world and this speech will give the president an opportunity to counter any impression he is not going to be fully engaged internationally,” Inderfurth said.

Obama offers a nod to moves to equalize the benefits gays serving in the military receive as well as efforts to allow women to serve in combat jobs currently reserved for men, reflecting some of the priorities of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s tenure in the Pentagon. Panetta has made expanding access to military positions a key part of his tenure, with one of his first acts formally allowing gays to serve openly and one of his final acts the lifting of the ban on women serving in combat positions.

The issue of wait time for voting has particular resonance in the biggest and typically most hard-fought electoral battleground of Florida, where wait times were higher than almost anywhere else in the country.

By touching on the gun debate toward the end of the speech – and devoting multiple paragraphs to it – the president is proving his commitment to some legislative action on initiatives to curb gun violence. He mentions background checks, limits on ammunition magazines and a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons.

More on the environment: Obama’s seemingly oblique language on how he’d tackle climate change thrilled environmentalists. Existing law, such as the Clean Air Act, “gives him the authority to reduce the carbon pollution from our dirtiest power plants, the single greatest threat to our climate future,” said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a big proponent of that idea. “That’s what the president delivered tonight,” she said. Meanwhile, oil and gas interests applauded the president’s embrace of traditional fuels, but called on him to open up more federal lands and approve the Keystone pipeline.

The president makes an emotional appeal to Congress on the issue of gun violence by pointing to the mother of a Chicago teen killed recently in Chicago. The issue has deep relevance in the president’s adopted community because the Windy City suffered more than 500 murders last year and violence has been on a steady rise in Chicago for years.

After a combative speech that drew deep distinctions with the GOP, the president devotes the final moments of his speech to more uplifting stories of Americans braving adversity: the New York City nurse who helped carry newborn babies to safety, the 102-year-old woman (pictured) from north Miami who waited six hours to vote and the Wisconsin police officer who was shot 12 times trying to prevent a shooting at a Sikh temple.

In the final passage, the president circles back to the prevailing theme of his second inaugural: we’re all in this together.

“We are citizens,” he told the assembled lawmakers. “it’s a word that doesn’t just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we’re made. It describes what we believe. It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations; that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others; and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter in our American story.”

There was a time when those words would be read as an appeal to Americans of all stripes, but four-plus years into the Obama presidency, Republicans and other critics may not see it that way. But the president that shied from direct confrontation early in his presidency proved once again tonight that he’s willing to fight for things that he believes the country needs.

The Truman National Security Project, a center-left think tank, hailed Obama’s promise to outline a legal framework for its counter-terrorism policies. David Solimini, a vice president for the Truman National Security Project, said the new rules for drones and counterterrorism policy need to be public.

“We applaud the President’s commitment to openness and transparency as we write new rules for the 21st century battlefield and ensure counterterrorism is pursued in a legal and ethical way,” Solimini said in a written statement. “He is right that Congress needs more access and oversight – the rule of law requires that our laws be public. And when American citizens are the target of any military action, the burden should be higher.”

Rubio isn’t offering new proposals (Obama didn’t offer many either), but he is breaking away from talking points and explaining the GOP position in a new way. “More government breeds complicated rules and laws that small business can’t afford to follow,” he says

Rubio says government is valid, but needs to be restricted. This is a delicate balance for Republicans because many independent voters see their push to cut spending as detrimental to lower-income Americans.

The White House has pitched its tax changes as a way to raise taxes on upper-income Americans by limiting their deductions. But Rubio says the taxes would hit the middle class by hitting their wages and benefits, and potentially even costing them their jobs. Says Obama has an “obsession” with raising taxes.

Rubio says the looming cuts for the military were Obama’s idea, and that it is wrong for the president to try and pin it on the Republicans. There is a measure of truth in that, but Democrats backed the Defense cuts in large measure because they felt they were so repugnant to Republicans that it would force the GOP to back at least some increased tax revenues.

There’s your answer from the GOP regarding action on climate from Sen. Rubio: Government policies can’t “control the weather,” presumably in reference to global climate change.

Rubio also attacked support for clean-energy firms like Solyndra, something the president didn’t really talk about directly. But he did sound a note that the oil and gas industry is pounding tonight: You want energy security, open more federal lands to oil and gas exploration.

MORE ON AFGHANISTAN: In a statement released after the State of the Union, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the withdrawal of 34,000 troops announced by Obama would be carried out in a “phased approach.” Panetta said even with the drawdown, the new commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, “will have the combat power he needs to protect our forces, to continue building up the capabilities of Afghan National Security Forces, and to achieve the goal of this campaign – to deny al Qaeda a safe haven to attack our homeland.”

Democrats’ 2010 federal health-care law gets more attention from Rubio than it did from the president. He says that some people are losing health insurance they were happy with (which is likely to be the case in some circumstances starting in 2014, although few people have been affected this way to date.) He also says that the law is the reason that companies are not hiring and are laying people off, though this hasn’t directly been proved to be linked to the health law so far, and that employers are switching from full-time workers to part-time workers, likely referring to companies that have reduced workers’ hours to below the 30 a week at which they have to be offered insurance coverage or expose their employers to a fine.

Rubio is devoting a lot of time to education, something his political mentor Jeb Bush has made a plank of his career since leaving the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee. Democrats oppose many of the incentives he talks about, but the issue is not one Republicans talk much about.

Rubio is being very careful on social safety net programs like Medicare. He says the GOP wants to fix these programs so they can help future seniors, and tells personal stories about Medicare’s impact on his family.

“I would never support any changes to Medicare that would hurt seniors like my mother,” says Rubio, echoing a Republican defense line that proved effective for others, such as Rep. Paul Ryan. He says that the federal insurance program for the elderly supported his father when he was sick with cancer, as well as his mother now, before arguing that changes need to be made to the program for future beneficiaries.

Rubio is presenting a softer, gentler Republican Party and pitches himself not as a hardcore partisan but as a unifying force with lines like this one: “Despite our differences, I know that both Republicans and Democrats love America. I pray we can come together to solve our problems, because the choices before us could not be more important.”

President Barack Obama covered a lot of ground tonight in his State of the Union address, wrapping up with a heartfelt appeal for stricter gun laws and tales of individual Americans overcoming adversity. Marco Rubio highlighted his upbringing and middle-class roots to present a softer, gentler Republican Party, while touching on policy prescriptions that have been lambasted by Democrats for years.

But, in the end, a sip of water may be the one thing anyone remembers a year from now.

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About Washington Wire

Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.